Thanks for all the reviews! This next chapter is split into two parts, so that I can warn you that due to extremely violent themes, the next installment or two will bump this fic up to a Mature rating. Steel yourself if you are weak-stomached, because I'm not at all, and the part coming up after this one gets to me big time.
By the time they reached Joxer's cottage, Xena's hypothermia had advanced to the point where she drifted in and out of sleep, and had trouble making sense of anything.
"Where are we going?" She asked for the third time.
Joxer had realized that she was suffering from the cold at about the fourth time she asked him what he thought he was doing with Argo's reins, and reassured her current query with a simple, "someplace warm."
The cottage was only a few buildings in on the outside of town. It was a comfortable size, very well-kept on the outside, and right next door to the town stables. Xena had a few brief moments of lucidity as Joxer led Argo underneath the porch roof, and found it very strange when Joxer raised his arm and knocked.
"I thought you lived here." She said.
"I do," he started defensively, working up a story, then decided he didn't have the energy for a lie. "I only rent the cottage from the stabler part of the year, but so does another family and a couple of traveling magicians. This isn't my normal time to be here." When no one answered his second knock, he pulled out a key and opened the door.
To Xena's surprise and confusion, Joxer left them on the horse outside and darted in to the warm cottage by himself. He returned with a thick woolen blanket and, to Xena's surprise again, threw it over her shoulders before helping her off the horse. They pulled Gabrielle's unconscious form off of Argo and carried her inside.
The house's furnishings were not as comfortable as it's size. They included two small beds, a table, and a big chair. Joxer and Xena carried Gabrielle to one of the beds and laid her very carefully on it. Once she was covered with a few blankets, Joxer grabbed a hold of the bed posts and started to pull the bed across the great room towards the fireplace. He only made it a few steps before Xena jumped in and began pushing from the other side. At the fireplace, Joxer stood and cracked his back, laughing nervously.
"Those solid oak bedframes are a lot heavier than they used to be," he said.
"They're pine." Xena said absently.
Joxer cleared his throat, and pretended to inspect the post his hand lingered on. "Oh, so they are." Then he turned and threw wood and kindling into the fireplace and lit it. Without saying anything, he went back to the other side of the room and pushed the remaining bed to join its mate.
Xena was standing over Gabrielle, still wrapped in Joxer's blanket, her face twisted with worry, her eyes lost within herself. She hadn't noticed Joxer returning with the other bed. He came to her and touched her on the arm, then gestured to the other bed.
"I'm going to go put Argo away and talk to the stabler," He said quietly.
Xena, tears pooling in her eyes, merely nodded and turned her attention back onto Gabrielle.
"You need to rest," he said, a strange hidden insistence in his voice made Xena look at him again. "I can't lose you both right now."
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